Thursday, November 16, 2006

Just heard from Rob Thomas, and the CW has given "Veronica Mars" a back seven instead of the traditional back nine. This is obviously brand-new information for them, so it'll take a while to figure out how this will affect the later two arcs. (My guess: since they're already at work on arc #2, the last one will take the biggest hit.)

This is good news, certainly for this season, and I don't know that the slightly reduced order is a big danger sign for the possibility of a fourth season. The CW hasn't been as successful out of the gate as expected, and they may be looking to pinch pennies until they get through to next year. Or maybe I'm just being naively optimistic. Wouldn't be the first time.

UPDATE: Rob says he's still trying to figure things out, but as of now, the plan is to do a four-episode arc for the end of the season.

Whew! Thanks for sharing this. I was really worried the season-long character arcs would be badly shortchanged by cancellation. (Plus, it would suck to lose the show when it's on a creative roll.)

It's an odd choice to go with 20 eps instead of 22, but I too don't think it indicates the CW's thinking re. next season one way or the other.

I'm kind of addicted to your blog, BTW. I love reading your take on shows I watch. I used to read and enjoy your thoughts on usenet lo these many years ago (I believe we even corresponded a few times). I'm glad you're blogging in addition to writing for the estimable Star Ledger (my NNJ local paper these days).

I for one am SERIOUSLY pissed with how overwhelmingly feminine tuesday nights are on the CW. It makes me feel like a faerie for watching the show. I can almost guarantee it's a turnoff for most other guys as well. Maxi pad commercials, cleaning products, facial cleansers, lingerie...it's SO frustrating to have to deal with that to watch my favorite show. I'm not saying the should start advertising beer and half naked chicks either but working a LITTLE bit more toward the male demographic would not at ALL be harmful to the network.

Having devoured Season 1 over the summer, my Season 2 discs arrived yesterday. Were I not travelling over Turkey Day, it would be devoured in short order. While Gilmore Girls is a primo lead-in from a compatability standpoint, the timeslot is sheer suicide, with shows all over the map with similar appeal. "House" has the sarcastic pop cultural quips (and Laurie and Sean Leonard's performances regularly outdo Bell and Colantoni's), "The Unit" has the "hardboiled" edge that the show delivers surprisingly effectively, and "Dancing With The Stars" sucks away a certain amount of "girl" audience (and Veronica isn't a show you can pickup at the halfway point of an episode). How Veronica does in a Dancing-free atmosphere over the next few weeks will be interesting.

Okay, I was just lurking over at TwoP and, as per usual, they're all gloom and doom despite the good news.

Do you know if Rob is looking at this as the final season? I mean, it seems to me it has a pretty good chance for renewal, just because Gilmore and 7th Heaven will likely be gone, with Smallville not far behind, leaving lots of room and few guaranteed viewers.

That's assuming, of course, it rebounds after Dancing with the Stars is gone. (I'm hoping we can lure at least a few hundred thousand of the 27 million now freed up.)

I think the news is still too fresh. I had heard rumblings of a shorter order yesterday afternoon, and when I called Rob to tell him, he wasn't prepared for that and said, "Well, I suppose that'll be my problem to figure out when it happens."

But I also know enough people in the CBS/CW hierarchy to be able to confidently say this: if they didn't think the show had a chance to do better without Dancing with the Stars as competition, they wouldn't have bothered even with this back seven.

Glad to hear about the back seven ... but shouldn't the CW have given Rob & Co. more notice that a 20-episode season was a possibility? It sounds like this came as a surprise and now the creative team is going to have to scramble to fit everything in. Oh well, I'm still happy. This season has been great and I would have been crushed to lose the show in the middle of Arc 2.

Honestly, I'm less concerned about VM than I am about the network it's on. Most of the top-rated CW shows (Gilmore Girls, Smallville, 7th Heaven) are aging fast and so far the CW has completely sucked at both marketing and development. Am I the only one who thinks the CW might not be around for very long?

Alright, someone brought it up. The Unit has the hard-boiled edge when it sticks to stories about the men, but every single woman on that show irritates and annoys me (Rebecca Pigeon and Summer Glau still rock, but they're not regulars.)

My wife and I'd gotten close to canceling the season pass a few times last season as the women "stretched" their roles and we finally did when anti-war protesters were shown up as Hitler apologists by Abby Brammel's Tiffy.

"It makes me feel like a faerie for watching the show. I can almost guarantee it's a turnoff for most other guys as well. Maxi pad commercials, cleaning products, facial cleansers, lingerie...it's SO frustrating to have to deal with that to watch my favorite show."

Personally, I think "aerie tuesdays" needs to go take a long walk off a short pier (especially if they continue to mock the women we are supposed to relate to)....

.....but after that "omg TAMPONS!" tirade, I'm tempted to urge the CW to take a page out of [adult swim]'s playbook and tell you to fuck off - you aren't their target demographic.

Because seriously, if I have to deal with the shit that comes on in between The Daily Show and Inyuyasha (most especially the network literally telling me that they don't give a fuck if I watch or not), you can fricking learn to deal with American Eagle and tampon commericals.

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